University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos went to Sag-ang, La Castellana to plant timber and fruit trees. BIND and UNO-R has forged a partnership to mobilize National Student Training Program to plant trees in upland areas.
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Local organic farming expert Estelito Dantes in Marcelo, Calatrava redesigned his farms using the rainforestation approach. He combined his annual food crops with perennial fruit trees that will give his family diversified food items the year-round.
Negros Island’s forests continue to disappear and efforts to preserve the island terrestrial biodiversity and simultaneously sustain human food production and generation of additional incomes for the households have led to the development of the concept of rainforestation farming, the “closed canopy and high diversity forest farming system. It aims to stop slash and burn system, form a buffer zone around the forests, protect their diversity, help maintain water cycle and provide farmers with steady sources of higher incomes.
About 180 farmers planted about 25,000 seedlings in their farms and around their homes. Mobilizing households to grow more trees is an effective way for the rural poor to avert shortages of fuel wood and other essential tree products. As the diversities of goods and services derived from trees are better appreciated, a growing trend for agroforestry as a tool for resource poor farmers in stabilizing and improving their farm system is growing as well. Tree crops are helping the poor to increase output and generate income and secure a greater degree of self-sufficiency with low inputs of capital and labor.
BIND donated seeds and polythelene bags to plant assorted seeds of fruit trees and grafted rambutan and lanzones, and dipterocarp timber trees. They were raised in 182 household nurseries, raising a total of 38,810 seedlings.
Despite harassments from the municipal chief executive, the BIND-assisted CBFMA holder in Salvador Benedicto raised and planted the lion share of seedlings planted, at 16,670 of the total 24,944, or 67 percent, trees planted. Raised as a community-based enterprise, its members sold 1,800 fruit trees seedlings to DENR, while it planted the rest on a total of 10 hectares. Over 300 UNO-R students also bought seedlings and planted them within the CBFMA area.
The tree species selected are local based on the assumption that a farming system is more sustainable the closer it is in its species composition to the original local rainforests. The system will ensure that ecosystem functions are kept intact: water supply for human consumption is sufficient and healthy; droughts do not affect crops and people negatively; probability of flooding is diminished; and tree production becomes a main source of income.
BIND carried out training on rainforestation to 163 farmers from June to September and distributed seeds and seedlings of mostly threatened species like tindalo.
Animal dispersal was implemented with BIND distributing a counterpart of 70 chickens, and the LGU and Department of Agriculture donating 55 ducks and pigs to 20 farmers.
DENR’s Caroline Grejado collects purchased timber and fruit seedlings from Bagong Silang’s households. Plant genetic resource conservation saves points for the environment and provides communities with income as well.
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Multistakeholders BIND’s Theresa Brunia, DENR Caroline Grejado and HEKS Barbara Salazar cooperated to monitor legally harvested rattan in the Bgy. Bagong Silang CBFMA area.
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